Two US lawmakers have this week complained to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin over a Pentagon report which purports to account for civilians killed accidentally by American forces.

Representative Ro Hanna and Senator Elizabeth Warren, both Democrats, rebuked the Department of Defense (DoD) for minimizing the number of casualties. The lawmakers cite open sources that indicate the Pentagon underestimated deaths by a factor of five.

Calling for a further investigation into the Pentagon’s admissions, the lawmakers stated: “We need to openly consider all the costs, benefits, and consequences of military action, and that includes doing everything we can to prevent and respond to civilian harm.”

The Pentagon report in question is an annual accounting of civilian deaths caused by US forces in foreign operations. It claims that there were only 23 civilians killed during the year 2020 in military deployments across six countries: Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria.

It is by no means the first time that the Pentagon has been accused of underestimating its “collateral damage”. In a previous report for 2019, it claimed responsibility for 132 civilian deaths in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria whereas open-source figures put the death toll for the period at nearly 10 times higher.

On reading the latest US military report, it sounds like the epitome of legal probity and humanitarian scruples.

It states (page 5): “All DoD operations in 2020 were conducted in accordance with law of war requirements, including law of war protections for civilians, such as the fundamental principles of distinction and proportionality, and the requirement to take feasible precautions in planning and conducting attacks to reduce the risk of harm to civilians and other persons and objects protected from being made the object of an attack.”

However, to get hung up on the narrow issue about the exact number of unlawful killings inflicted by the American military, or on whether those deaths amount to war crimes or not, is to miss a much more important point. That is, the entire US military presence in these foreign countries is illegal and arguably amounts to the supreme war crime of aggression.

The Pentagon report admits to operations in just six countries. No doubt there are more nations where US covert forces are deployed. But let’s just take the six admitted to.

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were the result of US lies and fabrications about the perpetrators of 9/11 and weapons of mass destruction. There was no justification for these wars which caused millions of deaths over a span of two decades. Doing an annual audit on civilian deaths is obscenely misplaced.

Those entire military operations were “permitted” by ad hoc US laws known as Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF). Under international law, the only foreign military deployments that are legitimate are those mandated by a right to self-defense from imminent attack, or by the UN Security Council, or by a request from an allied government for assistance. Arguably, the US launched its wars on Afghanistan and Iraq without meeting any of these criteria.

In the cases of Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Nigeria, the illegal presence of US forces is even more salient. The invocation of AUMF laws by Washington is grotesquely tenuous. It is simply a carte blanche to invade foreign nations and bomb at will. That is nothing less than aggression and state terrorism.

So, while Democratic lawmakers in the US may sound ethical in their criticism of the Pentagon over counting civilian casualties, their concern about “proper accounting” and “costs and benefits” is really a sham.

The real and only issue is to end all criminal US wars that are being waged in multiple countries simultaneously. American lawmakers and the American public need to realize that their government is guilty of war crimes, not just guilty of glossing over human horrors.

American leaders shouldn’t be receiving letters of complaint. They should be receiving warrants for prosecution over war crimes.

The views and opinions expressed in the article do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.

German Ambassador to Russia Geza Andreas von Geyr on Saturday stated that Berlin won’t change its stance on Nord Stream 2, also stressing that sanctions against the pipeline, introduced by Washington, contradict international law.

“At the moment, important negotiations between the American and German governments are ongoing, which include the topic of Nord Stream 2, but our stance on the matter is clear, and it will not change: we are convinced that the energy security of Europe, as well as European energy policy should be determined by Europeans only, and not by foreigners”, the ambassador said on the sidelines of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF).

© SPUTNIK / ПРЕСС-СЛУЖБА EUGAL

In this handout photo released by the press-service of Eugal, a view shows the Eugal pipeline, in Germany. The Eugal pipeline, which will receive gas from Nord Stream 2 in the future, has reached full pumping capacity, and the second line of the pipeline has been introduced. European gas pipeline link (EUGAL) is a 480km-long natural gas transport network being developed in order to strengthen the supply of natural gas to Germany and Europe.

When asked about US-backed sanctions targeting the pipeline, the diplomat noted that those restrictions were against international rules.

“As for the sanctions, our position is that such an instrument – extraterritorial sanctions – is not applicable, as it goes against international law”, he explained.

The United States has been opposed to the project from the very beginning, claiming the pipeline poses a danger to European security, and subsequently imposing sanctions against the companies involved in its construction, despite repeated protests from Russia, Germany, and other European countries.

© SPUTNIK / MIKHAIL GOLENKOV

The Russian pipe layer vessel “Akademik Cherskiy” is pictured in the waters of Kaliningrad, Russia. Pipe-laying vessel Akademik Chersky is able to complete the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline

In May, Washington blacklisted 13 Russian vessels and three Russian firms involved in the implementation of Nord Stream 2 – after previous sanctions prompted Swiss pipelaying company Allseas to withdraw from the endeavour, causing a delay in pipelaying work.

The 745-mile-long Nord Stream 2 twin pipeline will carry up to 1.9 trillion cubic feet of gas per year from Russia directly to Germany under the Baltic Sea, passing through Danish, Finish, and Swedish waters. At the moment, the project is nearing its final stage, with over 95 percent of it already having been completed.

During an 18 May press conference with his Icelandic counterpart Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson, Secretary of State Antony Blinken claimed that Russia advances “unlawful maritime claims, particularly its regulation of foreign vessels transiting the Northern Sea Route.”

“The regulatory scheme that Russia has put forward does not give due regard as required by international law to navigation rights, freedoms of the territorial seas and exclusive economic zone,” Blinken said, stressing that Washington “ha[s] and will respond” to this.

Responding to Blinken’s criticism, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov emphasised that “it has been absolutely clear for everyone for a long time that this is our territory, this is our land,” referring to Russia’s Arctic coast, related internal waters and exclusive economic zone (EEZ).

New Dimension to Old Maritime Dispute

The US-Russia dispute over the Northern Sea Route (NSR) – also referred to as the Northeast Passage – has been flaring for quite a while and goes as far back as the 1960s. According to Moscow, NSR is a national transport route and subject to national legislation on historical grounds. Most of the NSR goes through Russia’s internal waters or EEZ with special national rules of navigation being applied to the passage.

The US does not agree with this approach and considers some of NSR’s straits to be international to which the regime of transit passage applies, citing the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).

SOVCOMFLOT

Sovcomflot LNG ship Christophe de Margerie and Russian icebreaker 50 Let Pobedy traverse the Northern Sea Route in February 2021, the first commercial cargo vessel to do so

While the row has on many occasions been resolved peacefully, the US Department of Defence’s new Arctic doctrine and Secretary Blinken’s renewed criticism of Russia have added a new dimension to this issue, according to Jan R. Weinberg, an American peace activist and founder of ‘Show Up! America’.

The Pentagon’s 2019 Arctic doctrine particularly names Russia a “strategic competitor,” a bit short of “adversary,” Weinberg notes.

According to the DoD, US interests in the region include “maintaining flexibility for global power projection, including by ensuring freedom of navigation and overflight.” To that end, the Pentagon undertakes to “strengthen the existing, international rules-based order in the Arctic” to “deter strategic competitors from specific, aggressive acts and from unilaterally seeking to change norms governing access to the region.”

© AP PHOTO / STAFF SGT. DANIEL LOVE

In this Oct. 25, 2016 photo provided by the U.S. Army Alaska, paratroopers secure an area in view of the aurora borealis, or northern lights, during night live-fire training at Fort Greely, Alaska. The battalion spent much of Exercise Spartan Cerberus in subzero temperatures training in Arctic, airborne and infantry tasks.

US Pursues Its ‘Hegemonic Interests’ in South China Sea and NSR

The Pentagon’s self-declared goal of sustaining a rules-based freedom of navigation order in the Arctic resembles nothing so much as Washington’s justification of its military presence in the South China Sea, the peace activist suggests. In both cases, however, the US vows to protect UNCLOS rules which it has failed to ratify so far, he adds.

“It is patently absurd, while calling out other nations, that the United States has not ratified The United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS),” Weinberg notes. “I have not heard Secretary of State Tony Blinken advocate for the United States to ratify the UNCLOS treaty which would certainly lend authority to his accusations about the misuse of Russian and Chinese claimed Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ).”

The South China Sea accounts for a third of global maritime trade with 80 percent of China’s energy imports passing through this waterway. The South China Sea maritime dispute appears to be more complicated than that involving the Northern Sea Route: China is laying claims to a large portion of the sea with all islands and their adjacent waters in accordance with its “nine dash line” concept. Neighboring nations have their own competing claims in the sea which makes it a highly contested area.

The Spratly Islands, comprising Subi Reef, Northeast Cay, Southwest Cay, South Reef, and Sandy Cay, are claimed by China, requiring prior permission or notification of transit under innocent passage in its territorial sea.

The United States, which is not part of the maritime dispute, has nevertheless declared itself an “arbiter” and protector of UNCLOS rules by dispatching warships to the region to conduct regular freedom of navigation operations (FONOP) there without requesting permission or providing notifications. Washington argues that none of the nations involved in the dispute has formally made a legal claim to a territorial sea around these features, according to Harvard’s Belfer Centre. However, Beijing has repeatedly signaled that it considers these passages provocative and a “serious infringement on China’s sovereignty.”

What the US Navy is really protecting in the South China Sea are Washington’s hegemonic interests, according to Weinberg, who asserts that America’s “Pivot to the Arctic” is about the same thing. While the South China Sea is carrying over $3 trillion in trade annually, the Arctic accounts for 22 percent of the world’s hydrocarbon resources, the peace activist remarks. “I believe that is why our military is there, even though they give lots of other reasons,” he notes.

© AP PHOTO / JAMES VAZQUEZ

In this Jan. 22, 2017, photo provided by U.S. Navy, the USS John S. McCain conducts a patrol in the South China Sea while supporting security efforts in the region.

Parallels: South China Sea & NSR

To assert its presence in both areas, the Pentagon is conducting a wide range of military exercises in the Arctic and in Indo-Pacific, including those involving the US’ NATO allies and partners, Weinberg notes.

The aforementioned military drills are conducted in close proximity to strategically important maritime routes:

·      the Malacca Strait, a waterway connecting the Andaman Sea and the South China Sea and a key oil trade chokepoint;

·      the Bering Strait, a strait connecting the Pacific and Arctic Oceans between Alaska and Russia and the most eastern point of the NSR.

The US-NATO military deployments near these crucial areas not only pose a threat to China and Russia, but also create a grave danger to international trade by stepping up risks and increasing potential costs, according to the peace activist.

“While Blinken professes to be ‘worried that the increased militarisation [of the Arctic on the part of Russia] will lead to bigger problems’ the United States conducted, under the auspices of the Indo-Pacific Command the Northern Edge 2021 military exercises which are based out of Alaska,” the peace activist says.

The US military deployment in the Arctic under the pretext of the alleged challenge posed by Moscow in its turn creates a threat to Russia, Weinberg highlights. Similarly, Barack Obama’s military deployments in Indo-Pacific region and FONOPs in the South China Sea within the framework of Pivot to Asia were perceived as a threat by the People’s Republic of China.

PETTY OFFICER 2ND CLASS CODIE SO

An MH-60R Seahawk assigned to the “Saberhawks” of Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron (HSM) 77 lifts off the flight deck of America’s only forward-deployed aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) while conducting operations in the South China Sea.

The similarity of the “Pivot to Asia” and “Pivot to the Arctic” is hardly surprising given that many Obama-era politicians have joined Joe Biden’s cabinet, the scholar points out. Some of them came to politics from the US military industrial corporations through the so-called “revolving doors,” Weinberg notes, referring to Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin, who used to work on the board of Raytheon Technologies.

The parallels don’t end here: by beefing up its military presence in the respective regions, the US is equally pouring salt in Russia and China’s wounds, according to the peace activist. Thus, Washington’s agreement with Norway on building new US military deployments near Russia’s borders evokes strong memories of the Cold War and the West’s failure to deliver on its promise to not expand its NATO alliance eastward.

When it comes to China, the US naval presence in the Indo-Pacific coupled with Britain’s dispatching of an aircraft carrier strike group led by HMS Queen Elizabeth there brings to mind the West’s Opium Wars against China and the Century of Humiliation, according to Weinberg.

The peace activist insists that those at the helm in NATO nations should bear these historic reminiscences in mind to avoid further escalation before it’s too late.

The Biden administration is bringing the Arctic into focus as glaciers are melting, expanding the region’s shipping lanes and increasing access to natural resources, Foreign Policy Magazine noted on 20 May, citing Antony Blinken’s official visit to Greenland and Iceland as well as NATO’s growing presence in the “high north”.

The magazine outlines three elements of a new emerging pattern:

·         First, on 16 April, Washington struck the Supplementary Defence Cooperation Agreement with Norway, which will allow the US to build infrastructure at three air bases and a navy facility along the Norwegian coast.

·         Second, American Virginia-class submarine the USS New Mexico (SSN-779) arrived in Tromso, Norway on 10 May.

·         Third, the Pentagon and its NATO allies are stepping up joint naval and air drills in the region: on 18 May, 10 countries kicked off Exercise Formidable Shield in the North Atlantic.

Foreign Policy admits that despite warning against a military buildup in the Arctic, Washington appears to be doing the opposite: “Hypocrisy? It depends on who you ask. Top Russian officials certainly think so. But some Western experts say no”, the magazine writes, suggesting that the US is “simply bulking up deterrence and dusting off the Cold War-era cobwebs on militaries practicing operating in the North Atlantic”.

Washington’s vested interests in the Arctic region are obvious given that the latter accounts for 22 percent of the world’s hydrocarbon resources, according to the United States Geological Survey. By 2040, the Arctic could have almost no summer sea ice, providing shorter shipping routes and bolstering trade opportunities.

© SPUTNIK / ALEXANDER LISKIN

An Arctic dawn

The Pentagon’s New Arctic Doctrine

The US’ renewed pivot to the high north stems from the Donald Trump era and is well reflected in the Department of Defence’s 2019 Arctic Strategy. In subsequent years, every major US military service branch came up with their own specific Arctic doctrines. The US Coast Guard published its Arctic Strategic Outlook in April 2019; the Air Force came up with its blueprint in July 2020; the Navy released its own Arctic strategy in January 2021, while the US Army unveiled its “Regaining Arctic Dominance” on 16 March 2021.

“The United States maintains strong defense relationships with six of the seven other Arctic nations. Four are NATO Allies: Canada, the Kingdom of Denmark (including Greenland), Iceland, and Norway; and two are NATO Enhanced Opportunities Partners: Finland and Sweden. They are highly capable, with immense experience in high latitude operational environments”, the DoD doctrine says.

© AP PHOTO / JUSTIN CONNAHER

In this Dec. 6, 2012 photo provided by the U.S. Department of Defense, soldiers assigned to 6th Engineer Battalion utilize snow shoes during Arctic Light Individual Training on the Bulldog Trail in sub-zero conditions at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska. ALIT is the United States Army Alaska’s Cold Weather Indoctrination program. It gives all soldiers, regardless of their job, the foundation to successfully work, train, and go to war in some of the harshest environments in the world.

At the same time, the document regards Russia as NATO’s biggest “competitor” and, apparently, a hurdle to US-NATO ambitions in the region. The country accounts for 53% of the Arctic Ocean coastline and has the largest Arctic population with roughly two million people – around half of the people living in the high north worldwide.

In addition to this, Russia maintains control over the Northern Sea Route (NSR), the shortest maritime route from Europe to Asia, which almost entirely goes through Russia’s territorial waters or the country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ). Russian law stipulates that the NSR is a “historically developed national transport corridor”, while the US is trying to challenge this stance by claiming that the route is “an international strait and it is open for transit passage”, as Commandant of the US Coast Guard Admiral P. Zukunft outlined in his statement in spring 2018.

The Pentagon’s Arctic doctrine specifically targets the NSR arguing that Russia’s position lacks legal basis and threatens to “challenge excessive maritime claims” in the region and “deter strategic competitors from specific, aggressive acts and from unilaterally seeking to change norms governing access to the region”.

It further claims that Russia poses an “effective offensive threat” to the US in the high north, adding that its “modernized subsurface and surface naval presence” will have “a strategic effect on US homeland defence”.

Russia is not the Pentagon’s only headache in the high north: China is also increasing its operations in the region. Beijing is planning to use the NSR as a “Polar Silk Road” – part of its ambitious global Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – and is developing joint energy exploration projects with Russia in the Arctic.

“The Arctic has the potential to become a contested space where United States’ great power rivals, Russia and China, seek to use military and economic power to gain and maintain access to the region at the expense of US interests”, the US Army’s 2021 blueprint reads.

In order to “regain Arctic dominance”, the US Army is seeking to “employ calibrated force posture and multi-domain formations to defend the homeland and pose dilemmas for great power competitors” in close cooperation with its network of NATO allies, which it sees as a huge strategic advantage in the region.

ROYAL DANISH AIR FORCE

A B-1B Lancer flies with a Danish F-16 during a training mission for Bomber Task Force Europe, May 5, 2020.

US Military Buildup in the Arctic

The Pentagon walks the talk: it has beefed up its military presence in Alaska, increased the number of ground troops, and stationed more fifth-generation fighter planes there “than exist in any other location on the planet”, according to War on the Rocks. The US Navy has reactivated the Second Fleet, which achieved full operational capabilities on 31 December 2019 in a bid to return to the great power competition in the Northern Atlantic.

In March 2021, the US Air Force dispatched four B-1 and B-2 strategic bombers from a base in Norway to conduct a mission over the Arctic Circle. According to Forbes, it was “a clear demonstration of strength for two audiences: America’s NATO allies and Russia”.

In addition to deploying nuclear-powered submarines in Norwegian ports and stepping up joint NATO military drills, as mentioned above by Foreign Policy, Washington is encouraging its allies and partners to project further power in the high north.

On 17 May, US Secretary of State Blinken endorsed Denmark’s plans to boost its military presence in Greenland and the North Atlantic. In February, Denmark allocated 1.5 billion Danish kroner ($245 million) in military investment for surveillance drones in Greenland and a radar station on the Faroe Islands.

© REUTERS / POOL

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gesture as they arrive for a meeting at the Harpa Concert Hall, on the sidelines of the Arctic Council Ministerial summit, in Reykjavik, Iceland, May 19, 2021

Ahead of the 12th Arctic Council Ministerial Meeting in Reykjavik, Secretary of State Blinken reiterated Washington’s claims that Russia, which assumed the rotating chairmanship of the body this year, “advance[s] unlawful maritime claims, particularly its regulation of foreign vessels transiting the Northern Sea route”.

Moscow resolutely dismissed the US criticism and in response questioned NATO’s motives in deploying strategic bombers and nuclear-powered submarines to the area.

“It has been absolutely clear for everyone for a long time that this is our territory, this is our land”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said at a press conference in Moscow earlier this week, referring to Russia’s Arctic coast and related EEZ. “When NATO tries to justify its advance into the Arctic, this is probably a slightly different situation and here we have questions for our neighbours like Norway, who are trying to justify the need for NATO to come into the Arctic”.

During the Reykjavik summit, which took place on 20 May, Lavrov noted that “Russia, as the largest Arctic power, believes that its priority at the Arctic Council is to promote the region’s balanced and sustainable social, economic and environmental development”, stressing that “the Arctic is a territory of peace, stability and constructive cooperation”.